


To Have Loved and Lost.

by PixelatedFae



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Death, Dead Henry Mills (Once Upon A Time), Emotional Hurt, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelatedFae/pseuds/PixelatedFae
Summary: What if Henry died at the end of the final episode of season one? What if true love's kiss was only a fairy-tale all along? An exploration of alternative events had Emma been unable to save her son. First OUAT fic, unsure if I'll make anything much of this; I just wanted to throw out some ideas I had while finishing the season one finale.





	To Have Loved and Lost.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueHoneyBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueHoneyBee/gifts).



> Hello everyone!! Thank you to everybody for reading my FIRST Once fic! I'm actually watching this series for the first time (currently on S2E5 at the time of writing this note, hehe) and I wanted to use this fic as a way to try and get out some feels I've been having about the show (all good, ngl).
> 
> Since this is my first fic AND first time watching the show, I'm sure that there may be some out of characterness that I'll try to keep to a minimum - however, any and all constructive criticism is welcome, just be gentle because I'm a b a b y. :D. Anyways, I REALLY do hope that at least ONE of y'all will enjoy this fic~
> 
> I dedicate this one to my wonderful friend Bee, who's been an amazing constant for the past God knows how long lmao. Thank you so much for introducing me to such an amazing show <3  
> _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I still don't know how I walked out of the hospital room that day. Everything was a blur - still _is_ a blur. One moment Regina and I are charging to see Henry, and the next…

Regina was shouting as I ran towards the bed. Doctors and nurses milled around the pair of us, white noise filling my ears as they did everything they could. At one point I felt fingers grip my shoulders try to steer me out of the room, but they quickly removed themselves when I told them where they could stick their hands. Nothing was going to tear me away from Henry, not after being away from him for his entire life - not while this was happening. Not again. Never again.

Henry’s skin was still warm when my lips touched him, and I swear - I _swear_ \- that I still felt life below the flesh. But nothing happened. No dramatic gust of magic, no flash of light, and definitely no breath from Henry. I guess with everything that he’d told me about true love, I thought my own kiss as his mom would fix him. After all, there’s no greater love, right?

Wrong. Whatever it was that took hold of him wasn’t _magical_ or _fixable_ , it was real and tangible and it had ruined the only good I had put on this Earth. It took my son.

“I’m so sorry, kid,” I whispered. Tears fell from my cheeks onto Henry’s, and I wiped it away with a shaking thumb. “I love you. I’m so sorry.”

A sob echoed from across the room as a quiet voice documented the time of death. I didn’t need to glance up to see the tears that undoubtedly fell from Regina, too, and I didn’t need to glance up to see that she had thrown everything off of the tables in her grief. I think that this was the first time I couldn’t blame her for her reaction. God knows I’d have thrown whatever I had been holding, except… I was holding _him_.

This time the sob came from me.

“Mayor, I have to insist that you both leave. There are a few things we have to-”

“Get out!” She screamed, throwing another projectile at whoever had interrupted her pain, for once not directing her anger at me. “Out!”

I barely heard the clamor of feet as they left, murmuring about giving us five minutes alone with him. I was too focused on the small, fragile, lost boy in front of me. A hair hung over his forehead and I gently lifted it aside, stroking the space above his eyebrows. Memories of him danced through my head as I looked down at his face, all of them full of happiness and love and wonder.

“It wasn’t meant to be this way,” a voice croaked from beside me. This time I did look up, expecting myself to lunge for the woman next to me, to all but tear her throat out, but my anger fell through. Regina was broken, her face streaked with mascara and tears, any arrogance she had harbored before in tatters. In this moment I didn’t see an “Evil Queen” or corrupt mayor, I saw the woman who had raised Henry. I saw his other mom. After a second she continued, “even prepared for you, it was never meant to kill anybody. Especially not…”

My throat tightened. Again, I expected anger, even hatred, to take over, but all I could muster was exhaustion. My hand stroked Henry’s cheek, and pang after pang of despair pumped through my chest with every second that he didn’t respond. I could feel Regina bristle beside me, too, and her hand hovered for a second above his face. Was she hesitating to... to touch the kid that _she_ raised?

"Regina, I..." I said, my own voice cracking. She looked at me, eyebrows raised and eyes full of shame, and my voice stopped in my throat. Instead of continuing I just shook my head, grabbed her outstretched hand, and brought it to the other side of his face. I could feel the gratitude actually emanate from her, waves and waves of confusion bouncing around the room. A small gulp came from her. 

"I suppose you already tried...?"

"Yes. Of course." I replied. "It didn't work. What if you-?"

"Impossible," Regina laughed hollowly, her lip trembling as she stared at Henry. "If it didn't work for you, the woman who  _embodies_ true love, then I have no hope. And anyway, it's too late. Henry is..."

Her breath shuddered, gasping and rasping as slow panic took hold of us both. She didn't need to follow up that sentence with anything, we both knew. Wracked sobs escaped our throats as we collapsed at the side of his bed, heads bowed onto the mattress as reality slammed down upon our backs. We clung to each other like children, one hand gripping the others' arm while the other hand held onto Henry.  
  
He was gone. Our son, our baby, was truly gone. And there was nothing we could do to change it. 

 

* * *

 

 "Emma," Mary Margaret said in her soft voice, placing the cup of coffee onto the bedside table. "Emma, you have to wake up. The funeral is in an hour."

I looked up at her, barely taking in her silhouette in the low light of the apartment. It had been a few days since we'd been in the hospital, and the preparations for the funeral had started almost immediately. After our breakdown in the room we had been swiftly removed and taken aside. Regina, in her most Regina fashion, had taken it upon herself to plan everything from point A to point B. However, in her not-most Regina fashion, she had also extended a (slightly forced) invitation to me to help out.

 

_"No, thanks," I said, warily standing up from the chair I'd been sat in. I hiccuped, a side effect of the tears, I guess, and wiped my sore eyes. "You do whatever you need to for this. I have to go tell... well, everyone."_

_"If they don't already know," Regina replied, rubbing her temples._

_"Yeah. Well, Mary Margaret would kill me if I didn't tell her myself," I winced as I realised my poor choice of words, before hastily continuing, "but go ahead and make the calls however you see fit. Just... make sure to take care of yourself."_

 

"Emma," Mary Margaret said again, gently shaking my arm to get my attention. She sat on the edge of the bed, a worried expression on her face. "Are you okay? We don't have to go if it's too hard."

"Yeah, we do," I sighed, throwing my legs out of bed, grabbing my coffee as I stood. "It's definitely too hard, but he is - he  _was_ \- my son."  _And your grandson_ , I added in my head, quickly shaking off the weird feeling that had been plaguing my thoughts every time I'd seen Mary Margaret since the other day. One horrific thing at a time, please.

"Okay." Mary Margaret stood up, staring at me for a second. I narrowed my eyebrows as I took a sip of my coffee, and before I knew it she had thrown her arms around my shoulders and held me for a few moments. I couldn't help it, I leaned into the hug and let her care for me, even if it was just for a second. When she pulled back, I quickly wiped fresh tears from my eyes and held a smile - a shaky, tearful, bittersweet smile. She smiled back, held my hand for a second, and left me to get ready.  
  
"God, Henry," I said to myself, looking out of the window at the rain outside. "You were right. About me and Mary Margaret, about the curses and the magic, about everything. So why did you end up leaving us anyway?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> And there it is! I hope y'all enjoyed it!
> 
> Things may not make sense right now in regards to the magic and curse and how it wasn't lifted and why Henry ended up dying at all, but I promise I have plans to explain it!! Just hold on a lil longer~<3 SwanQueen IS coming, too, I just want there to be enough time for them to realistically grieve and move on before falling head over heels for one another. 
> 
> Anyways, let me know if this is a fic worth pursuing! I wanted to write more, but I have awful hands and wrists so it just ended up hurting too much to continue lol. It was so much fun to write though! Take this as an apology for such a short chapter (also because I wanted to get the end of the episode out of the way in order to prepare for the next chapters) *begs for forgiveness*


End file.
